I was just browsing through the Adobe site as I am quite interested in the new Creative Suite. Since it costs a lot of money, I wanted to ask for your guys' opinion on which edition I should buy. Basically I'm going to use it for school (my elective's digital arts) and for leisure as well. For designing websites for fun, Flash, editing music, what not. What are the differences among the editions ba? Which one do you guys think suits my needs? Thanks a bunch. I just want to be absolutely sure with what I'm doing before I shell out a whole lot of money. And suggestions on the most affordable place/site to get it would be greatly appreciated.
If you are gonna do websites and illustration, the web premium or design premiuim should suit you just fine.
Thanks for the suggestions! I guess that makes sense, was just kinda confused about the differences among them.
I personally use Design Premium since it has the Core Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and Flash components.
You can go here: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/web/standard/ Mouse over Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium etc to see each packages contents. And since you are still studying, I think you can avail of the education price.
Essential softwares you must have regardless of versions, (CS3 preferably) Adobe Photoshop - Image, Bitmap, Photo Editing Adobe Illustrator - Vector and Layout Dreamweaver - Web Development Flash - Interactive, Animation InDesign - Multi-pages Layout
Adobe software prices are quite insane and is a major investment. Unless your the kind of creative professional who makes at least 100+ USD every billable hour (like what we pay our artist here in our Tokyo office) it is better to let the company or school provide you with a copy to work/study on. For example, the Premium Creative Web Suit will cost you 1,500 USD regular and 500 USD educational discount if purchased directly in the Adobe store. I'm pretty sure given the pricing structure here in the Philippines, going for an educational discount here will cost about 4 to 5 thousand pesos more then the on standard price in Adobe's website. If you are really determined to get your own copy, try getting a friend or a relative abroad who is a student or working for a school in North America for help. Ask her to provide you a scan or clear photo of their school ID and use that ID to purchase your stuff in the Adobe Store or an educational only reseller in the States/Canada, you'll save a bundle. Also take note, you cannot upgrade the Educational versions of Adobe software.
Downside to CS2, as we know, is that it is slower on the (new) Intel Macs, MB line. CS3 is optimized for the Intel models, so expect to experience some slow renderings on big files.
Here is a link on CS3 compatibility on Leopard (pdf) http://www.adobe.com/support/products/pdfs/leopardsupport.pdf From the table in the PDF, CS2 or earlier; Acrobat 7 or earlier etc were not designed for Leopard and they have issues w/ no resolution being planned.
